This article was downloaded by: [Randy Rezabek] On: 21 January 2014, At: 09:01 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Cryptologia Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucry20 The Russian Fish with Caviar Randy Rezabek Published online: 21 Jan 2014. To cite this article: Randy Rezabek (2014) The Russian Fish with Caviar, Cryptologia, 38:1, 61-76 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01611194.2013.797046 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions Cryptologia, 38:61–76, 2014 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0161-1194 print DOI: 10.1080/01611194.2013.797046 The Russian Fish with Caviar RANDY REZABEK Abstract Historians have noted that the capture of the ‘‘Russian Fish’’ from the Germans was probably the most important outcome of the 1945 TICOM operation. Recently declassified documents have now provided a wealth of infor- mation pertaining to this vital break into Soviet communications at the dawn of the Cold War. Keywords Caviar, GdNA Groupe VI, Karrenberg, Russian Fish, Steeple Clayton, TICOM Introduction The first account in the open literature of the top-secret 1945 TICOM (Target Intelligence Committee) mission to capture German cryptologic materials, person- nel, and equipment was by Thomas Parrish in his 1986 book, The Ultra Americans. In a chapter entitled, ‘‘The Russian Fish,’’ he provided a general description of the operation and featured its most important outcome, the capture in Bavaria of a German intercept unit that specialized in the collection of Soviet multichannel tele- type signals. The capture of this equipment and its operating personnel came at a moment, now that Germany was defeated, when Anglo-American intelligence offi- cials began to focus their attention on the ‘‘Russian Problem.’’ Parrish revealed that this unit was ‘‘flown to England, where the equipment was set up at an installation about twenty miles from Bletchley. It appears to have been put to work by the Allies immediately’’ [10, p. 284]. A year after Parrish’s book was published, an amazing article appeared; a photo essay of the mission from the personal collection of Lt. Paul Whitaker, one of the Downloaded by [Randy Rezabek] at 09:01 21 January 2014 TICOM officers who was a member of the team that recovered the ‘‘Russian Fish’’ at Rosenheim [15]. The photographs of the then still top-secret operation showed the progress of the TICOM team from Bletchley Park through various scenes in Germany to the digging up of the equipment by the PWs. Little further information was published about the operation until James Bamford recounted the story in his second book on the NSA, Body of Secrets.He added a few additional details from other aspects of the mission, but concluded that the capture of the ‘‘Russian Fish’’ was ‘‘one of the most important, and most secret, discoveries in the history of Cold War codebreaking. ...The discovery of the Russian code breaking machine was a principal reason why both the U.S. and British governments still have an absolute ban [as of 2002] on all details surrounding the TICOM operation’’ [4, p. 15, 17]. Address correspondence to Randy Rezabek, 213 Colonial Drive, Webster, NY 14580, USA. E-mail: [email protected] 61 62 R. Rezabek The following year, in his account of the TICOM mission, Michael Smith added the fact that ‘‘the top secret equipment was taken together with its operators, to Wavendon Manor where it was set up and tested against real Soviet transmitters.’’ Richard Aldrich, in his history of the GCHQ, revealed that once the ‘‘Russian Fish’’ operation was set up in England it was given the codename ‘‘Caviar.’’1 These authors provided the gist of the story, but as these things go, the full story is much more nuanced and complex. Recent declassified TICOM documents from the NSA are beginning to fill in the details, including the identities of the German PWs, the number and types of the teletype receivers, the location of initial operations in England, and the type of Soviet traffic intercepted. The Discovery On 21 May 1945, TICOM Team 1 (Figure 1) officers Lt. Cdr. Howard Campaigne, Maj. Edward Rushworth, and Capt. Thomas Carter went to the POW camp at Bad Aibling to follow up on a tip that a German prisoner, an Unteroffizier Dietrich Suschowk, had knowledge of certain signals intelligence equipment and documentation pertaining to the interception and decoding of Russian traffic. Suschowk explained to the TICOM team that he worked for General der Nachrichten Aufkla¨rung (GdNA) Gruppe VI, a platoon size unit lately responsible for intercepting high level Soviet radio teleprinter traffic. The last location of this unit was at the Pionier-Kaserne, a barracks at Rosenheim, Bavaria. Suschowk, described as ‘‘the natural leader’’ of this group of 20 or so prisoners, was eager to cooperate with the Allies [7, Appendix 14]. The next day, the TICOM officers returned to Bad Aibling and escorted the Gruppe VI prisoners back to their quarters at Rosenheim (Figure 2), now occupied by a U.S. Army ration dump, and were put to work digging up the equipment buried under the cobblestones (Figure 3). The prisoners recovered a dozen large chests, 53 smaller chests, and another 53 boxes totaling about 7.5 tons [4, p. 16]. Suschowk and his team then volunteered to put one of the machines together and demonstrated that it was in good working order. TICOM officer 1st Lt. Paul Whitaker, who had joined the party at Rosenheim, later reported, ‘‘They were intercepting Russian traffic right while we were there. And pretty soon they had shown us all we needed to see’’ [10, p. 283]. The equipment was a special receiver that the Germans called the ‘‘HMFS’’ 2 Downloaded by [Randy Rezabek] at 09:01 21 January 2014 (Hartmehrfachfernschreiber; i.e., multichannel intercept teletype). Designed to intercept the Soviet equivalent of the ‘‘Fish’’ traffic, these encrypted radio teletype signals had a twist (Figure 4). The Russians had devised a method to break the mess- age into pieces and to transmit these segments multiplexed on up to nine separate channels. Without knowledge of the signal characteristics and the proper equipment, interception was very difficult. The German prisoners and their gear were then taken to Seventh Army H.Q. in Augsburg and held awaiting transportation to the U.K. This provided both TICOM and Seventh Army G-2 an opportunity to initially interrogate the prisoners, who consisted of a senior NCO, three mechanics, 11 operators, two decoders, and four evaluators. Three in particular were found to be most helpful. The aforementioned Suschowk was described as an intelligent man with a firm grasp of the specialized 1See [13, p. 293] and [3, p. 49]. 2IF-162, Evaluation of Multichannel Teletype (HMFS). NSA FOIA case #64093, 29 March 2011. The Russian Fish 63 Figure 1. TICOM Team 1 in Germany: (left to right) PFC William E. Hoin (US), driver; LAC L.H. Howells (BR), radio communicator, F=Lt. Geroge H. Sayers (BR); Lt.=CDR Howard H. Campaigne (US); Sgt. H.G. Anderson (BR) radio communicator; Capt. Louis T. Stone (US); 1st Lt. Selmer S. Norland (US); Maj. Angus McIntosh (BR); Major Ralph P. Tester (BR); Capt. Edward Rushworth (BR); W=Cmd. Oscar A. Oester (BR); Sgt. Clarence L. Ray (US), driver. (Photo by Paul K. Whitaker, originally published in Whitaker and Kruh [15].) apparatus and its operating procedures. Unteroffizier Werner Hempel, an engineer by profession, was not only responsible for maintaining the equipment but also helped the Lorenz Company build it. TICOM commented, ‘‘He is not a leader like Suschowk, preferring as he does to get on with his job in a quiet and apparently efficient way.’’ However, the most useful prisoner for TICOM eventually proved to be Unteroffizier Erich Karrenberg, a cryptanalyst. He was born in Poltava, Russia in 1911, the son of a German manufacturer. After being educated in Russia, he returned to Germany in 1930 to study music and was later employed as a lecturer in the History of Art and Music at Berlin University. He either joined the Army in 1939 or was called up in 1941 (sources vary), but nevertheless he ended up utilizing his Russian language skills in a wire-tapping detachment at the front. After a stint Downloaded by [Randy Rezabek] at 09:01 21 January 2014 Figure 2. The courtyard at Pionier-Kaserne barracks at Rosenheim, Bavaria, 23 May 1945.